Memento Mori
by Emerald Griffon
Summary: Becasue no one lives forever... Futurefic, nondescriptive death


Gigo had been the first mobile to be born from the Motherboard's thoughts and Dairine's emotions. He had watched the black hole eclipse their sun, he had watched the birth of all the subsequent mobiles. Each word Dairine had spoken to him, and each word he had spoken to her, he remembered.

_"Everything runs down eventually...that's just the way this universe is. I'll run down too, in the end. I'm part of this universe, after all. It's in me too..."_

Although she had warned them, although he knew she had designed them to last much longer than she would, he was still surprised when she appeared to them in spirit. Standing, approximately, before the monolith erected in her honor, she spoke her last words to them, the last words they would ever hear from her while they continued to run...

"I know you will last much longer than I am going to. But Timeheart lasts forever. Be it 100, 200, a million years, we will meet again. And I will always be looking for you-" Her voice was cut off suddenly, and her image faded, but they heard several final gasps of pain and then contented silence, and they knew she had left this universe.

Her monolith still stood, but it was no longer good enough. Together, they focused their wizardry and reshaped it, forming an image of her sitting on a rock, bent over Spot, still in his old form of a laptop that he had first used when they were created. Beneath this statue was a plague, a simple one:

_Dairine Callahan  
Mother and Creator  
1978-2070  
Forever Remembered_

Although it was hard, they finished it in the end. Each one of them was tired out, even with the Motherboard helping. Mourning silently, they each returned to their own homes.

* * *

Gigo was slowing down, Logo could see that easily. Just last night, when they were working on an extermely complex spell, Gigo's part had taken almost ten whole milleseconds! The spell had been considerably slowed down, and some of the younger mobiles had naturally blamed Gigo, who had already retreated in shame. 

Later, when he was teaching a class, one of his students, Plutonium, had asked a particualrly hard question about spin foam variables. Although Gigo knew he should have been able to pull the answer out of his memory banks in less than a millesecond, instead he took two whole milleseconds. After his class was over, Logo came up to him.

"Gigo, take the day off, and meet me in my apartment after I'm done teaching. I want to talk to you..."

* * *

Gigo arrived at the apartment rather slowly. It should have taken at most five milleseconds, with the transit spell, especially since it was such a simple one. Instead, he arrived three milleseconds after the expected time. Logo was already there, tapping his feet.

"Gigo, I think you're running down." It was simple and fast, the way Logo spoke. Gigo had expected nothing less.

"Yes...I agree. I'm afraid I may not even be able to see you again tomorrow. If...if I don't show up next morning, come and find me. And...if I've gone, will you let my body return to the Motherboard? Let my circuits and silicon return to her, and continue her endless forming. Please..."

Logo looked at the other mobile for a long time before answering. "Yes. I will."

* * *

_"Dairine."_

_"What?" she asked rather lazily, looking up at the Transcendent Pig._

_"Gigo is about to come here. And you promised..."_

_"I know, I know." Flicking aside the piece of grass she had been playing with, she marched off across the field, soon disappearing into the light._

* * *

Gigo plugged himself into his outlet and settled down to enter a dream sequence. And this time, it was unlike anything he had ever seen before. He was walking across a field...of some green substance, that appeared purely organic. It was formed in multiple small blades, and the blades were apparently delicate, for they crushed beneath his feet, but sprang up again when he lifted them. And coming from the other side was someone he knew well...

_"Dairine!"_

_"Gigo!"_

She rushed towards him and swung him around, as she had done so many times. Around and around they went, until at last she dropped him, and fell on the field panting.

"What are you doing here?" he asked curiously. "Why are you in my dream?"

"I'm here you take you to Timeheart," she replied. "It's your time, after all..."

And then, the two of them were floating above...his home? And he looked down upon himself. And as he watched, the light near his outlet fizzled and went out.

"Good. The last connection to your body has been severed. You can leave it behind now..."

And they floated upwards, out of his planet's gravity, out of his star system, into the light.

* * *

"Icon, wait up!" complained a tread-wheeled mobile as she chased after another one with multiple tiny legs, like a centipede.

"Aw, c'mon, Moto, you're holding me up! We didn't get to see it last time because all the old ones were blocking us, remember? We need to get there early today!"

But somehow, when they got there, they could see it clearly. A preteen slowlife humanoid, sitting on a rock, typing on an ancient-looking computer. Sitting on her lap was a mobile, an ancient one as well, with the simplest legs and only a single infrared sensor.

"We came all the way for this?" mocked Icon. "A slowlife with two outdated examples of quicklife?"

"Shush!" hissed a voice from behind.

"Oh, it's you, Plutonium," Icon muttered. "Really, what is this?"

"Show some respect...Dairine is our Mother, after all, and Gigo the First One... It is said that when Gigo ran down, Dairine came to fetch him specially. For the rest of us, she won't come. She'll just wait...

_"She only came for him..."_

* * *

Heheh, after all, didn't Dairine say the mobiles would also run down? Even if they have the longest lifespans of any sentient creature... So I wrote this little fic.

Also, the title is Latin. And that's all I'll tell you. :P


End file.
